


The Great Pastry Heist

by Amuly



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 10:43:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6467131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dennis and Jack are on a stake-out together when Dennis notices some cupcakes in the window of a bakery. Based on <a href="http://robotmountain.tumblr.com/post/140031884905/happy-birthday-to-me">this adorable art</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Pastry Heist

Dennis smiled out the window of the van—the “Cap-mobile”, he called it to himself—and indulged in a bit of people-watching as the day progressed. There was a young woman arguing with some guy in front of the jewelry shop across the street. At first glance Dennis had figured they were a couple, maybe a soon-to-be-engaged couple, arguing over engagement rings or some such. But the more they shoved at each other, and the amount of sarcastic eye-rolls bandied back and forth, seemed to indicate a more platonic relationship. At least, Dennis sure hoped it did. Maybe siblings, arguing over a present for their mother. They didn't look much alike, but Dennis had a sister with jet-black hair and blue eyes, so there really was no accounting for familial resemblance.

In the seat next to him, Jack shifted before burping loudly. Dennis snorted and leaned over to shove him playfully, before he thought better of it. That Jack Monroe sure wasn't an easy nut to crack. Any sort of friendly gestures Dennis accidentally extended towards him tended to be rebuffed in the most acerbic way possible. Dennis aborted his movement, but still smiled to himself. He'd get through to Jack. People always wound up liking him, in the end.

“How much longer you think I'm going to be stuck in this van with you?” Jack finally grumbled. Dennis counted it as a win: anytime Jack initiated conversation with him was definitely a cause for celebration. A tiny, internal celebration, but a celebration nonetheless.

“Until this place gets robbed. Or the one Sam and Steve are staking out does.”

Jack snorted and leaned back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest. Dennis chanced a glance his way, and was pleased to see the faintest traces of a smile ghosting over Jack's face before he suppressed it. “Go team Cap.”

“Go, team!” Dennis agreed, perhaps more genuinely than Jack had intended it.

They fell into silence again for a long while. The couple—sibling or otherwise—across the street finally left, woman gesturing wildly as the man skulked a half-step behind her. Dennis turned his attention to the bakery a few doors down from the jewelry shop, eyeing up the pink cupcakes in the window. They were topped with rainbow sprinkles and looked positively gourmet. Dennis smiled at them.

“Barring super villainous intervention, I'm going to buy two of those cupcakes for us tomorrow,” Dennis told Jack. “For my birthday.”

Jack grunted. Dennis watched him out of the corner of his eye, waiting as Jack visibly struggled not to take the bait. Finally Jack sighed and twitched, just once, in his seat.

“Tomorrow your birthday?”

“Yup!” Dennis popped the “p” happily. “What do you think they are: chocolate or vanilla?”

“Red velvet,” Jack shot back, contrarian that he was.

“That's buttercream frosting, not cream cheese,” Dennis replied just as quickly.

Jack's mouth hung open for a second, at a loss for a quippy reply. Finally he sputtered out: “You can't tell that from _here_.”

Dennis laughed and moved towards Jack again, to poke his knee or something equally as silly. He thought better of it again and stopped himself. Maybe if he played by all of Jack's rules for long enough, Jack would accept his offer of friendship. Or at least his offer of friendly acquaintanceship. Jack lapsed into silence again, but it wasn't unkind. At least, Dennis didn't take it for one.

A guy walked into the jewelry shop, wiping his palms repeatedly on his pant legs. Dennis cocked his head, wondering if this could be one of the Hydra jerks they were on the look-out for. About an hour later, the guy came out holding a box awkwardly in his hands. He turned it over and over again in his palm with something akin to terror on his face. Dennis snorted and marked him off his mental list. Engagement ring: had to be.

“How old you turning? Anything good, like forty?”

Dennis laughed. “Twenty-four. You jerk.”

Jack shifted, hands rubbing roughly at his knees. His gaze was fixed out of one of the van windows, refusing to look Dennis' way. Finally, he grumbled: “Thought you were older.”

“It's this chrome dome, isn't it?” Dennis asked ruefully. He rapped his knuckles against his own skull for emphasis. “I swear I looked my age when I had my mohawk.”

 _That_ startled a laugh out of Jack. He scowled afterwards, like he resented Dennis for saying something funny enough to elicit such a reaction. Jack coughed, chin dipping down against his chest sullenly for a minute. Eventually he grumbled out: “Hope there's photographic evidence of that.”

Dennis laughed. “Oh, sure! It was through my whole wrestling gig, so there's plenty of promo shots and posters and whatnot with my goofy mug plastered all over them, mohawk and all. I shaved it after I teamed up with Steve, you know: thought maybe it was unprofessional.”

Jack snorted, poking down at his own plainclothes that covered his Nomad costume. “Right. Because we're a professional-looking lot, us costumed vigilantes.”

Dennis laughed again and shrugged. “Well, you know.”

Jack sniffed and didn't reply, lapsing into silence again.

Later that evening, Jack stomped his way back to the van, bags of greasy fast food immediately stinking it up. Dennis' mouth watered and he grabbed eagerly for the food. “Thanks! Much appreciated.”

Jack groaned like Dennis had said something particularly offensive. Dennis supposed maybe it had been his good manners or cheeriness. Those things tended to irritate Jack, counterintuitively.

“How'd I get stuck in the C-lister van, anyway?” Jack complained. “I was a _Bucky_ , you know. By all rights I should be with Cap, and you and Sam should be teamed up.”

“Don't tell me: you'd take Sam over me, too,” Dennis guessed. Jack scowled but didn't deny it, answering with not much more than a one-shouldered shrug.

“Maybe Steve put us together on purpose. Team building exercise, you know. Companionship through proximity.”

Jack shot him a fairly sardonic look, enough that it made Dennis smile, at least. “Steve's a better tactician than to bet on something that won't work.”

Dennis grinned as he dug his fries out of the take-out bag. “Come on, you gotta admit: I'm growing on you.”

“Like fungus,” Jack grumbled. Dennis didn't take offense as he shoved a fistful of fries into his mouth.

As he was sipping at the last dregs of his soda a little while later, Dennis nodded at the bakery.

“So what do you think: the bakery is clearly a mob front, right?”

Jack didn't look his way, but he snorted and his shoulders relaxed a fraction.

“Sure: for the gay mafia.”

“I happen to think pink is a perfectly masculine color,” Dennis countered, if only because he had succeeded in getting Jack to talk to him again.

“You know you're walking right into that one, right?”

Dennis shrugged and settled back into his seat, watching as a smile flickered at the corner of Jack's mouth. Then he turned his attention back to the jewelry store. And the bakery with the delicious looking cupcakes in the window. Maybe tomorrow.

* * *

Half the block was blown to shit. Dennis sighed as he slid down a charred wall, just about every muscle in his body aching. Hell, his _eyeballs_ were aching. Dennis closed said eyeballs and breathed, feeling his damn busted ribs groaning. Getting up wasn't going to be fun.

“Hope these guys had insurance.” A voice floated down from above him. It was such a surprise that Dennis was able to convince his aching eyeballs open, out of sheer shock if nothing else.

“Jack?”

Jack wasn't looking at him: instead, he was peering around the blown-out building in dismay, frown lines making him look much older than the twenty-ish years old Dennis figured him for most days. He had one hand tucked casually behind his back, not noticeable really expect for the fact that Dennis noticed things like that.

“We stopped Hydra, at least,” Dennis offered when it seemed like Jack had nothing else to say.

Jack scuffed his foot over the rubble-strewn ground. Thousands of dollars of jewelry crackled under his foot, contents of most the display cases forming a gilded carpet around them.

“Hey. Don't be a goody-two-shoes about this, okay?”

Dennis frowned, not sure at all what Jack was getting at. Rather than answer something wrong—like he always seemed to do, when it came to Jack—Dennis just peered up at him, eyes burning with weariness and smoke.

Jack pulled his hand from behind his back. Cradled in his palm were two cupcakes: pink frosting, rainbow sprinkles. And a candle stuck into one. Dennis sat and stared, neck craned at an uncomfortable angle, eyes dry and scratchy. There was a candle stuck into one. His brain kept coming back to that.

“You want it or you going to make a fuss? I left a couple bucks in the cash register, if you're wondering. So don't go all boy scout on me.”

“I wasn't,” Dennis promised. He swallowed around his dry throat. “I mean. Thank you. Jack-”

Jack scowled and practically threw the cupcake at Dennis. Dennis jumped to his feet and took it quickly, before Jack dropped it in the rubble. “Just shut up and eat it.”

“Jack, _thank you_. This is-”

“You got me craving cupcakes, okay?”

Dennis grinned, clamping his mouth shut. He couldn't express his gratitude properly: not without irritating Jack. So instead Dennis just nodded and lapped up a dollop of frosting as he beamed.

There was absolutely a smile pulling at Jack's mouth, though he fought it mightily. Dennis watched the struggle until Jack bit forcefully into his own cupcake, getting pink frosting all over his face. Dennis ducked his head as Jack wiped irascibly at his mouth and cheeks.

“Just eat the damn cupcake, Cupcake.”

Dennis laughed so genuinely at that, overwhelmed in the face of Jack's sudden affection—back handed though it may be. He grabbed Jack by the neck and shook him roughly, grinning the whole time. Jack went wide-eyed and tensed up, like he expected a frontal assault from Dennis for the quip. When Dennis let go and Jack was left relatively uninjured, his expression screwed up. A dozen emotions fought for control of his face as Dennis watched, still smiling.

“Don't worry.” Dennis leaned in conspiratorially. “I won't tell anyone you're a big softy.”

“Dunphy, I swear to God-”

Dennis laughed and skipped out of Jack's reach, clutching the cupcake possessively in his palm. “I said I _won't_ tell anyone!”

“Give it back! Forget I ever tried!” Jack hollered after him. But it was significantly lacking in the normal bite of Jack's shouting.

It was actually not that good of a cupcake, all things said and done. But Dennis would be damned if he didn't take a note of the address and vow to return the favor when it was Jack's birthday.

 


End file.
